Friday, June 27, 2014

"Pope's takes bold step by condemning Mafia"

Peter Smith, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PITTSBURGH -- "When Pope Francis declared last week that organized crime figures are "excommunicated" from the Catholic Church, he wasn't making a formal legal declaration against any individuals by name...When instead of adoring the Lord, one substitutes the adoration of money, one opens the path to sin, personal interests and exploitation," Pope Francis said in a homily at an outdoor Mass to the estimated crowd of about 250,000 near the town of Sibari. "When one does not adore the Lord God, one becomes an adorer of evil, like those who live lives of crime and violence. Your land, which is so beautiful, knows the signs and consequences of this sin. This is what the 'Ndrangheta is: the adoration of evil and contempt for the common good."He added: "Those who follow the path of evil, like the mafiosi do, are not in communion with God; they are excommunicated!"Past popes have also spoken out against organized crime, but Francis is the first to use the word "excommunicated," according to Vatican watchers. He has previously prayed with victims of mob violence and formally beatified a priest killed in 1993 by the Mafia..."

Bridget Mary's Response: It is time for Pope Francis to lift the excommunication of Roman Catholic Women Priests. We are faithful followers of Christ who dedicate our lives to service of God's people. We do not belong in the same category as the Mafia. Women priests lead inclusive, egalitarian Catholic communities in 10 countries where all are invited to receive sacraments in the spirit of Jesus' example in the Gospels. Bridget Mary Meehan, www.arcwp.org

Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests gather for ordination of four women in Jan. 2014

ARCWP priests Judy Lee and Judy
Beaumont drove Martha's family from Ft. Myers to Sarasota. Katy Zatsick, ARCWP joined
us for a meal at Der Dutchman in Sarasota. What a joy to be together and celebrate justice rising up for women in South America and around the globe in the Roman Catholic Church!

..."It requires a quality of spiritual
focus, largely unknown to mainline religions, and therefore, a resource we must
also co-create at this time. Barbara Marx Hubbard expresses it well in these
words:

“Conscious Evolution is a new
worldview that is now emerging rapidly and garnering worldwide interest and
support. It acknowledges that humankind has attained unprecedented powers to
affect, control and change the evolution of life on Earth. . . Conscious Evolution
is at the core a spiritually motivated endeavor. Its precepts reside at the
heart of every great faith, affirming that humans have the potential of being
co- creators with Spirit, with the deeper patterns of nature and universal
design.”

Humankind is now in the process of
shifting our normal state of awareness from an individual/ego point of view to
a global/spiritual point of view, and our basic choice is to cooperate with
that process and help it along. We must let go of all the patriarchal domination,
still so endemic to our politics and religions. Empowered by the wisdom of the
great mystics, we must learn to submit to where the Great Spirit leads, and
make the many adjustments evolution is asking of us at this time. From here on
we are called to be a participatory and discerning species, not a dominating
and controlling one.

As we shift away from the old,
self-destructive patterns of competing for energy and towards a higher
spiritual potential, we evolve collectively towards a culture that is oriented
to co-creative growth and less focused on outer technologies, as a means for
survival. By being in harmony with the universal flow, we begin to “vibrate” at
a frequency that brings us into unifying alignment with the Source and also
with one another. In that way we move towards the new freedom, the deepest
aspiration of all the great religions, and central truth of the great mystical
traditions known to humankind."

Some
recommended reading:

Hubbard,
Barbara Marx. 1998. Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social
Potential.

The
Women's Ordination
Conference (WOC) is deeply saddened by yesterday's announcement that human
rights lawyer and founder of the Mormon organization Ordain Women, Kate Kelly,
was excommunicated by her church.

WOC
stands in solidarity with Kate, the members of Ordain Women, and all those who
bravely challenge sexism in religion. This excommunication affects us all.

Kate
followed her conscience and heart when she started Ordain Women, building a
groundswell of feminist voices within the Mormon Church. She created a safe
space for Mormons to speak freely about gender inequality in their religion and
to challenge the sexist traditions that exclude women from ordination simply
because of their biology.

As
an organization that works for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic
Church, we understand our sisters' pain and longing for dignity, equality and
justice in their faith community. We know from experience that the inappropriate
use of excommunication as a means to punish those who challenge sexism cannot
and will not stop the call for women's equality in our religious
institutions.

Only
when our religious leaders stop clinging to a culture of male
privilege and dialogue with women as equal partners, will they begin to model
Jesus' gospel message of justice. Communication, not excommunication, is long
overdue.

In
closing, Kate, know your Catholic sisters are standing in solidarity beside
you. We are confident that despite this attempt to silence you, the movement
you started is unstoppable and on the right side of history. You are in our
constant prayers. And in words of the Carolyn McDade song we sang together at
our joint Equal in Faith gathering,
"it may be rocky and it may be rough, but sister, carry
on."

I think this quote sums up the playfulness of the God of Surprises. Is this your experience? It is mine! "Religion degenerates into religiousity when God is absolutized...when fixed structures cannot adapt to changing circumstances. Excessive order paradoxically drifts towards chaos. which unexpectedly creates the conditions for the creative emergence of new patterns of order. The livingness of God disrupts and disfigures every stablizing structure, thereby keeping the playful whole in movement. Just when we think we have certainty of God, divinity will slip out from our evolutionary feet, and like the speed of light elude our grasp to become for us the power of the future." Sister Illia Delio in The Unbearable Wholeness of Being

Members of Gaia Book Club meet for dinner and discussion of Bridget Mary Meehan's Praying with Celtic Holy Women. Members are Millie Brady, Erika Woods, Judy Hayes, Lauren Basile, Peggy Alderman and Mary Weber.

"As a girl, Nancy Louise Meyer knew she was called to priestly ministry. Growing up in 1960s Ohio, her first thought was to become a Franciscan sister, which she did, serving as a secondary school teacher and associate vocation director for the Cincinnati archdiocese. But the call to priesthood stayed with her, and in 2010, she was ordained as a Roman Catholic Womanpriest."

"Sunday, Meyer became the first Roman Catholic Womenpriests bishop from the state of Indiana, where she has lived for 25 years and now pastors a home church community.
"The importance is never being the first," she said in an interview before her ordination. "I think the importance is living out my vocation with God's grace. It is a privilege to respond to my region's call to me by selecting me as bishop."

Meyer, who will serve as bishop of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests' Midwest region, is succeeding Bishop Regina Nicolosi, who is retiring.
Organizers said about 150 attended Sunday's ordination, which took place at Calvary United Methodist Church in Brownsburg with seven female bishops presiding, including Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, one of the Danube Seven, the first seven women ordained in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement in 2002.Mayr-Lumetzberger, the self-proclaimed grandmother of the movement, traveled to Brownsburg from Austria for the ordination and said she was proud of how far they had come in the 12 years since her ordination. Yet she also said she hoped women priests would one day gain more acceptance, especially from other Catholic women, who she said have a tendency to cut down women who take a stand within the church.

"They should accept that calls are different," she said. "In every life are different calls, and every woman and every man has different calls. Say thank you for every call you have. This is what I wish for the other women. I wish they would support us and go hand-in-hand with us. That would be nice..."
[Dawn Cherie Araujo is a staff writer for Global Sisters Report, a project of National Catholic Reporter. Her email address is daraujo@ncronline.org.]

Monday, June 23, 2014

Thank you, Rev. Chava for this beautiful reflection on the children in the Body of Christ. We join you in prayer for them and their desperate families. And we pray for our Nation that they may be welcomed and cared for here as God’s own children and that our part in their countries’ struggles will turn from exploitation to caring support.

Oscar Romero Inclusive Catholic ChurchBulletin for Sunday, June 22, 2014Feast of Corpus ChristiDear friends,Central America is bleeding children.As many as 60,000 children have entered the United States across oursouthern border in 2014, and there must be more on the way. They comefleeing violence, sometimes running from gangs that told them, “join ordie.” They come believing that the United States will take care of them.How desperate do you have to be to let your child go on such a dangerousjourney?In all the immigration debate in this country, I have heard much aboutwhether people ought to be allowed to stay, but little about why they comehere in the first place. – and almost nothing about United States policiesthat help to create and maintain the poverty and violence in their homecountries.The first time I visited El Salvador in 2005 there were many surprises. Thefirst was the realization as we got off the plane, that we could havewalked there. It would have taken an awful long time, but it we could have.And millions have walked that journey, heading north instead of south.The second was the ubiquitous presence of the United States in this CentralAmerican country. You cannot walk down a street in El Salvador withoutbeing aware of the existence of the most powerful country in the world. Ibegan to understand what it means to be part of an empire as I looked atthe familiar corporate logos on streets in El Salvador. One day we climbeda steep dirt path to visit a community clinging to life on the side of amountain. All the houses were made of sticks and found materials, somewithout roofs, with curtains for doors. And there among some of the poorestpeople in the world, stuck to a wall I saw an advertisement for a Disneymovie.Our presence is in the air they breathe. I visited a little town that hadexperienced earth tremors which they believed to have been caused by somedeep drilling being done by a North American company in the hills nearby.Those tremors knocked down about half the town. Another time, we heardabout the companies mining for gold, using chemicals to leach gold from theearth, destroying the very land. And I heard about the gangs that wereforming. Then, as now, El Salvador was losing hundreds of people daily tothe trek to the north – and the ones that came back were usually criminals,jailed in the US and then deported – returning to El Salvador to formgangs, using knowledge they’d gained in prison. And not only El Salvador,but Guatemala and Honduras, the countries from which those children arefleeing, now.On my second visit to El Salvador, my friend Ruth Orantes took me on a tourof the Baptist High School in Santa Ana. As we stood together looking at amap of El Salvador, she asked me, “So what do people in the United Statessay about El Salvador?”It hurt to have to tell her the truth. “They don’t,” I said. “I’m not suremost people even know it exists.”We need to know that those countries exist, and that they are full ofpeople, people who need the same things that you and I do – food andshelter, education and health care, the opportunity to grow and live andlearn. They are not there for us to exploit. Their countries are notAmerica’s trash can, where we throw what we do not need or want. But thatis how we treat them.I do not know the solution to the current crisis. But I know that a countrythat bleeds its children is a country screaming in pain. We have got torealize that we are part of what is causing that pain.Jesuit Jon Sobrino once wrote from El Salvador of the “scandalousprofligacy of the North.” Perhaps there is also the scandalous ignorantblindness of the North.Let us be the country these children believe us to be, when they risk theirlives to come here.Love to allChavaOscar Romero ChurchAn Inclusive Community of Liberation, Justice and JoyWorshiping in the Catholic TraditionMass: Sundays, 11 amSt Joseph’s House of Hospitality, 402 South Ave, Rochester NY 14620

In a joyful celebration Nancy Meyer became Indiana's first female bishop on June 22, 2014.BROWNSBURG – Brownsburg's Nancy Louise Meyer said she was first called to the Roman Catholic priesthood as a young girl growing up in Dayton, Ohio.But because the church does not recognize the ordination of women, she believed her call would forever go unanswered."As we did in those days, we always went to Mass daily," she said. "It was sixth grade when ... I had the total sense of God calling me to the priestly ministry, which wasn't even an option for a Catholic girl in the 1950s..."

Sunday, June 22, 2014

On this Sunday we remember Jesus’ gift of himself . Jesus gave himself in radical love. This meant long exhausting days surrounded and pursued by people in need of teaching and healing, challenging the shortcomings of established religion, and spending short nights with not enough sleep, body broken, blood poured out for all of humanity in the way he lived his life and in his death. Compassion for the poor and outcast especially moved him. He was on fire for them and against injustice. He asked the same of those who would follow him (Matthew 25). He gave it all so we could know and feel to the core of our very beings the meaning of “love one another”. Indeed on this special Sunday we are filled with thanksgiving and love for Jesus the Christ who gave it all.

In the Eucharist, the feast of thanksgiving and Holy Communion, we partake of the Body of Christ in all of its forms. We believe in the mystery of Christ- on the Table in the bread and wine, at the Table and all around the Table. Our readings of the day say that God nourished his people in the wilderness by providing a special substance called manna (Deuteronomy 8). God feeds God’s people on the finest wheat (Psalm 47). The Epistle reading says: “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we , though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (I Cor. 10-16-170.) We are nourished by his real presence in the bread and wine and in the people of God. The Sacrament is on the altar, yes, but in every one of us as we are the Body of Christ-we are the Sacrament of Christ’s love in the world. Most especially as we serve the poor and broken we know exhaustion and challenge as Jesus did, and we also see the face of Christ everywhere, being served and serving with us. We know a little of what it meant to be bread for the world as Jesus was (John 6:51-58). We know how this Bread gives us life now and forever and how we can leave no one behind as we share this life giving Bread.Some of these thoughts are from my book Come By Here: Church with the Poor, AmericaStarBooks.com,2010,now available in Spanish as well. The reason I include this citation is that the stories of the lives of those served and serving with us as we ministered to the homeless and poor outside in the streets and inside in our church house illuminate the essence of the body of Christ broken, yet whole.Here is the Corpus Christi reflection of another street minister, Rev. James Patrick Hall an Episcopal priest serving the homeless in Tulsa, Oklahoma:” Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi, and I would dearly love to join a Procession in the streets, attend a High Mass, with clouds of incense and deep throated choirs intoning “Humbly I adore thee, Verity unseen”….but…Today is also the day we have our Church on the street here in Tulsa, Thursday Night Light, and as much as I love the ancient worship of our Church, I love being with my street Church even more.So, as I thought about this, I realized there will be no conflict; Christ is most truly Present in the people gathered tonight. I will see as Colossians 1:27 says, a great mystery; Christ Present in His people gathered.In this great Communion of the Street, I can bow before Christ and confess Ave Verum Corpus Christi (Hail True Body of Christ) !Colossians 1:27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.‘Humbly I adore Thee, Verity unseen,Who Thy glory hiddest ’neath these shadows mean;Lo, to Thee surrendered, my whole heart is bowed…’”Precious Body, Precious Blood, Precious Jesus, we, your people love you and remember. Grant us the strength to follow you and to be nourished by your love as we bring the Bread of Life to the world. AmenPastor Judy Lee, ARCWPGood Shepherd Inclusive Catholic CommunityFort Myers, Florida